Investment portfolios

Onestepcloser

I'm looking at growing our portfolio. We are basically just starting as most of our money has went into our houses and we now have a nice home in a nice area with about 50% equity in it.

Next month will be our first payment of £270pm into vanguard life strategy 100, also have some savings although a small amount,  also started buying about £50 pm precious metals this last few months and we have a couple of litecoin and invested in some ethereum. 

We are currently clearing a loan and looking at getting rid of a pcp deal, both should be cleared within the year.

After those are cleared we should have close to £1000 pm to invest, we want to as agressive as possible for the next 15years, so we can have enough to allow us to go to a 3 day if we wanted.

I know investment is personal to each individual and we could lose money but hopefully 15 years will be long enough to ride out any lows, but any advice would be much appreciated

csgohan4

https://monevator.com/
above is a good start to understand investing, if your happy with VLS100 and it fits your strategy, nothing wrong with that either

DireEmblem

How about VWRP, you can hold it for free in Trading212, so no holding charge I think saving you 0.15% a year at least, and even use an ISA wrapper?  VWRP is relatively new, but is the accumulation version of VWRL.

dunstonh

but hopefully 15 years will be long enough to ride out any lows

Not really.   Whilst 15 years should be fine with a single contribution, it is is really the minimum for a regular contribution.   Only one payment will be there for 15 years.  The next will be 14 years, 11 months and so on downwards.     The bulk of your money will not make a complete economic cycle.  So, the level of risk you are taking should be kept under review and reduced at you get closer to your 15 year withdrawal point.

green_man

On a 15 year horizon regularly putting money in VLS100 seems a decent enough option to me.  Once you have a decent amount in the pot (50k+) you might consider adding to a couple of additional satellite funds to add a bit of spice: You may have specific interests or confidence in certain areas (e.g renewable energy, tech stocks, healthcare, infrastructure); or maybe just add a smaller companies fund etc etc.

AnotherJoe

Why VLS as opposed to other investments not artificially packed with Fossil fuel and banks?

EthicsGradient

dunstonh said:

but hopefully 15 years will be long enough to ride out any lows

Not really.   Whilst 15 years should be fine with a single contribution, it is is really the minimum for a regular contribution.   Only one payment will be there for 15 years.  The next will be 14 years, 11 months and so on downwards.     The bulk of your money will not make a complete economic cycle.  So, the level of risk you are taking should be kept under review and reduced at you get closer to your 15 year withdrawal point.

That might apply if the purpose was to get a lump sum at the end of the 15 years. But it's not - it's to have money to allow them to cut their working hours, ie take out a bit at a time. Exactly how long that will go on for, we don't know, but the last money they invest will still be invested for some time.

Onestepcloser

Reason for vanguard is it's low cost and low maintenance and we don't know enough to branch out out yet. Hopefully in a years time we will have a bit more knowledge for when we have more funds available to diversify more.

Time is not in our favour with being in our early 40's so if we want to get to where want to be i i know we will need to take an agressive approach. Should also say once we reach 15 years we aim to stay invested and if we're at a figure we're happy with where we can draw interest to match as close to our salaries as possible we will then look at a less agressive approach.

Stargunner

Onestepcloser said:

Reason for vanguard is it's low cost and low maintenance and we don't know enough to branch out out yet. Hopefully in a years time we will have a bit more knowledge for when we have more funds available to diversify more.

Time is not in our favour with being in our early 40's so if we want to get to where want to be i i know we will need to take an agressive approach. Should also say once we reach 15 years we aim to stay invested and if we're at a figure we're happy with where we can draw interest to match as close to our salaries as possible we will then look at a less agressive approach.

Vanguard may be low cost and low maintenance which is maybe why you also get  low performance. Look how VLS 100 has performed for the last 12 months.  I am sure that you could find better performing trackers/funds to invest your money in.

Onestepcloser

Stargunner said:

Onestepcloser said:

Reason for vanguard is it's low cost and low maintenance and we don't know enough to branch out out yet. Hopefully in a years time we will have a bit more knowledge for when we have more funds available to diversify more.

Time is not in our favour with being in our early 40's so if we want to get to where want to be i i know we will need to take an agressive approach. Should also say once we reach 15 years we aim to stay invested and if we're at a figure we're happy with where we can draw interest to match as close to our salaries as possible we will then look at a less agressive approach.

Vanguard may be low cost and low maintenance which is maybe why you also get  low performance. Look how VLS 100 has performed for the last 12 months.  I am sure that you could find better performing trackers/funds to invest your money in.

Surely I should be looking at performance over a longer term, especially so with the last year we've had. That said I will be looking at other funds once I clear those debts.

Albermarle

You do not mention you ( or your partners ) pension situation ? For most people this is  more important than investing outside a pension due to the tax benefits.